


Bleak Midwinter

by cygnes



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 16:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12346455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cygnes/pseuds/cygnes
Summary: Willing or not, intending or not, Gabrielle learns who her husband really is.





	Bleak Midwinter

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://manzanas-amargas.tumblr.com/post/166311172165/if-you-feel-like-it-credencegraves-or) on tumblr, written for [crocordile](http://crocordile.tumblr.com/)'s prompt "Bluebeard." I went a bit broad-strokes and thematic with the prompt, re: ideas of closed/locked doors and transgression, though I did also borrow a rhyme from one of the better-known versions of the story. (Content warnings in endnote.)

Gilead is a city of secrets. Those who’ve lived there all their lives don’t seem to notice, but it is apparent to Gabrielle. Arten was smaller. Fewer people, thinner walls. It was less a matter of secrets and more a matter of pretending not to know things for the sake of politeness.

(In Arten, she was an alderman’s daughter. In Gilead, she’s a gunslinger’s wife. That makes a difference, too.)

Her husband is not cold, but he is distant. Distant, and often away, leaving her in the company of strangers and closed doors. She is allowed in his study; she reads his books. So many books — more than she’s ever seen in one place. More than she knew existed. As much as she enjoys the luxury of reading, though, Gabrielle is not solitary by nature. The charm quickly wears off.

She takes to spending time outside. She plays at points with the other ladies, who find her a worthy competitor. She goes into the city, though she cannot do so alone, and cannot venture too far into the lower town. Arten was smaller than Gilead and yet Gabrielle feels that her world is smaller now than it ever was before her wedding.

Gilead is a city of flower and fruit, of milk and honey, but winter visits even the greatest city of the Inner Baronies. Gabrielle is driven back indoors. To long hallways, high-ceilinged rooms, and the company of her own thoughts. She pays calls on the other ladies who are likewise confined. She starts talking to the servants until she realizes it makes them uncomfortable. She reads again. She waits for her husband, she waits for spring.

“Why not visit your family?” Ada says. Ada Johns is round-faced and soft-spoken and has lived as a gunslinger’s wife for longer than Gabrielle.

“I never know when Steven will come home,” Gabrielle says. “I want to be here when he does.”

Ada considers this. “Perhaps the best policy,” she says after a long silence. “Until after you have your first child, at least.” Ada has two children, though it’s obvious to everyone that her second child (and only son) is not long for this world. He was born too soon and may not last the winter. The hurt only shows in Ada’s eyes. The rest of her face is as placid as a frozen pond. (Another closed door.)

Gabrielle thinks that her husband’s absences will be easier to bear when she does have children. She’ll have something to keep her occupied. Something to care about, to devote herself to.

Her husband’s absences are easier to bear in the first days after he leaves. It’s almost a relief. Not that he’s unkind, or even ungentle, but he holds himself apart. She feels alone even when he’s next to her; it’s easier to bear when he’s far away. But the days turn into weeks and she begins to wish even for cordiality and games of castles and the simple comfort of someone sleeping next to her. This, too, becomes a deeper ache in winter.

Midwinter is less than a week away when she wakes in the middle of the night, seized by dread. Gabrielle wraps herself in furs and runs through the halls without bothering to light a lamp. She has no very clear idea of where she’s going. Her father-in-law’s advisor is a magician, so it’s said, though they only spoke briefly at her wedding. She knows him by sight but doesn’t know where he works or where he lives. He might not be in the castle at all.

Gabrielle knows she could seek comfort with another lady. They must all have such dreams, and even if they don’t, they’ll receive her with sympathy. But she doesn’t want sympathy. She wants to _know_.

Some internal sense tells her she must go up or down. Search the cellars or the eaves. She has descended two staircases, ascended another, and found herself surrounded by closed doors again. The ceilings are lower here. She is lost. Still in the castle, so by logic she ought to be safe, but her desperation rises and falls in waves. She stifles a sob under her hands and it echoes back at her.

“You shouldn’t be here, lady-sai,” a voice says behind her. Gabrielle turns. It’s the magician she was looking for, cast in eerie grays and blues by the winter moon.

“No doors were locked against me,” she says.

“Very bold, lady-sai,” the magician says. “Have you heard it said, ‘be bold, be bold, but not too bold’?”

“Lest your heart’s blood should run cold,” she completes the rhyme automatically. Then, coming back to herself, she asks what she came to ask. “Is my husband dead?”

“I wouldn’t know any more than you,” the magician says.

“But you could find out,” she says. She does feel bold. She takes a step toward him. “I had a dream,” she says.

“What did you see?” he says. He doesn’t step back.

“I don’t remember,” she says. “Only what I felt.”

“Better still,” he says. He doesn’t step forward, either, or offer her his hand, but leads the way through one of the low doorways. There is a moment of perfect silent darkness before he lights a lamp. In the lamplight, he looks less like a wraith and more like a man. It’s frightening in a different way.

He pours water from a pitcher into a basin. Earthenware, both of them. Nothing made from silver or carved with mystical symbols. She’s struck by the ordinariness of it, the strangeness of the images appearing on the surface. Steven on horseback. Steven building a fire. Steven washing blood from his face in a river, lying beside another woman, cleaning his guns.

“Alive and well, sai,” the magician says. Gabrielle says nothing. The words have gone from her head. She knows, has known, that her husband is a man who makes his living through death. She knows he has loved, maybe still loves, other women. But knowing and seeing are not the same. “Do you feel any better?”

“Yes,” she lies. “Thank you. I’m quite well.”

“But cold,” he observes. “No shoes or even slippers. What will your husband say if he finds out I’ve let you lose a toe to frostbite?” Gabrielle is at once aware of how nearly undressed she is, wearing only a nightgown and furs, and of his perfect unconcern. It must be alright if he hasn’t so much as touched her in all this time.

“I’m fine,” she says. “It’s not cold enough for that. But thank you again.”

“Can you find your way back, sai?” he says. “Is there a fire waiting to warm you?” His smile in the lamplight is a little sly. In the moonlight, it might only be polite.

“Perhaps you should show me the way,” she says.

“Bold, my lady,” he says. “Perhaps I should carry you and spare your poor feet.”

“Too far, sir, even in jest,” she says. Her voice is too soft to sound commanding or even scolding. He bows but does not lower his eyes.

“Cry your pardon,” he says, and leads the way back out of the little room. “Though you might call me Marten, if you like.”

The fire in her room is down to embers when she gets back. She sits beside it until dawn. How terrible the dream; how terrible the reality. How much more bitter the cold and the loneliness. In the mirror, her face has Ada’s placidity. The night has left no mark upon her that her husband will see.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for implied child death, infidelity, implied murder, faint vibes of sexual menace. (Fairly tame, for something drawing inspiration from such a bloody story!) Also, the title is from the name of [a Christmas carol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HGRsR8G4bE), but don't read into that too much — I just like the sound of the phrase.


End file.
